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HP Tank

I'm looking to start a first life 32-point HP Tank on another server. Because this will be my first toon on another server I don't have access to epic gear, but I WILL have access to huge amounts of plat that will be contributed from real life friends (partly the reason i'm moving is to group with them more often).

I've been playing a while, and I want to work on a decent first life tank (Decent Healing Amp and Large HP). I was thinking I should play around with fighter for a main class and as a race maybe H-Elf with a barb dilly. For the HP and DR.

However you all are the experts and I've come to you for advice. Should I just scrap this dream and maybe roll with a pure barb instead because the lack of equipment because it's not possible to buy decent enough tanking gear off the AH?

32 point build
Access to all races and classes
Access to plat piles (so +1 and +2 tomes are possible and if told within time even +3 tomes can be bought off the DDO Store)

Any advice as to starting stats? Focus on con, or strength?
Maybe suggestion on feats. Obviously i'm not going for AC so no AC feats, so i'm guessing DPS feats mainly? Stunning blow worth it?

If you look up my 'Iron Defender' build, replace all the AC feats (Dodge/Mobility/Ftr active PL/CE) with extra copies of Toughness, and then swap AC-only items (16/t3 Bracers of Wind) for non-AC items you will have a good start IMO.

Human and half-elf are definitely the optimal races as healing amp is your most important stat and every other race is massively behind those two in amp.

Edit: Oh and I'm not a fan of building around Chimera's Fang as it's Artificer dependent for DR in many raids and also will probably be somewhat obsoleted by the expansion.

If you look up my 'Iron Defender' build, replace all the AC feats (Dodge/Mobility/Ftr active PL/CE) with extra copies of Toughness, and then swap AC-only items (16/t3 Bracers of Wind) for non-AC items you will have a good start IMO.

Human and half-elf are definitely the optimal races as healing amp is your most important stat and every other race is massively behind those two in amp.

Edit: Oh and I'm not a fan of building around Chimera's Fang as it's Artificer dependent for DR in many raids and also will probably be somewhat obsoleted by the expansion.

I included all of the standard feats that the Fang offers anyway and actually forgot to mention the DM's in the feat list above.

This is the build Sirgog mentioned above for anyone too lazy to google. If you remove: Dodge, Mobility, CE, PL:Fighter, PL:Barb, Improved Sunder and add Improved Shield Bash, Bullheaded, DMII/III, Force of Personality, Lightning Reflexes and Insightful Reflexes you've made a good start. Improved Sunder and Stunning Blow are great feats but they don't directly make you a better tank and probably a better idea to remain very focused with your limited resources (you could take them both by dropping down to just 1 toughness though which might be ok if you are fine not to tank elob for a while).

With -30 from no barb PL, +20 from 16 starting con, +10 from racial toughness III you'll end up with the same 901 base HP with Sirgog's feat list which is only needed for eLoB (I believe) even though the feat list I'm suggesting will help you to be a more generalist tank without needing specific epic gear. Once you get to the stage that you want to tank eLoB you can see where you're at HP wise and possibly swap out some unneeded feats for more toughness (though this is a 1 way process as multiple toughnesses aren't able to be swapped to other feats).

With starting stats of 16/8/16/14/8/14 you've got +5 reflex, evasion, +3 will save which will work nicely in a majority of content that you would want to tank (echrono comes to mind for evasion). The will saves will help immensely should you want to farm challenges which is a definite as it's easily acquired epic gear. +2 tomes across the board will let you SF pot with ship buffs, you'll just have to carry stacks of cats and owls pots to SF pot after you've died (and ask for the actual spells to be loaded or pass wands to an arti for more difficult quests).

Gear is the more important consideration. You need healing amp, hate generation, Str/Con/Int/Cha, intimidate, HP. That said, there's nothing there that is particularly difficult and you could easily get a workable gear set with very minimal gear I think.

I'll point out that the Half-Elf Barbarian Dilettante only gives DR1/-, with up to DR3/- IIRC from enhancements. You can easily get that with lesser axe/hammer/spearblock items, or Adamantine FP. For that matter, In S&B mode as a Defender you'll get DR6/-, which I don't think will stack. So when you are actually tanking, it will be useless. An extra +1 CON means you can have up to an extra 20hp from enhancements, but the toughness enhancements do not stack with Fighter toughness enhancements.

I would go Cleric dilettante early on, until you get the UMD gear for self-healing, then swap to Monk for an extra 20% Healing Amp. Or just go Monk if you think you won't need the self-healing as early. The 20% amp more than makes up for the 20hp difference, and as I said the DR won't matter as it is easily replaced or surpassed. Another alternative, if you pump CHA like someone else has suggested, is Paladin dilettante as that gives you most of the same wand access, and up to +5 to saves, depending on your CHA score. Never underestimate the importance of high saves!

I'll point out that the Half-Elf Barbarian Dilettante only gives DR1/-, with up to DR3/- IIRC from enhancements. You can easily get that with lesser axe/hammer/spearblock items, or Adamantine FP. For that matter, In S&B mode as a Defender you'll get DR6/-, which I don't think will stack. So when you are actually tanking, it will be useless. An extra +1 CON means you can have up to an extra 20hp from enhancements, but the toughness enhancements do not stack with Fighter toughness enhancements.

I would go Cleric dilettante early on, until you get the UMD gear for self-healing, then swap to Monk for an extra 20% Healing Amp. Or just go Monk if you think you won't need the self-healing as early. The 20% amp more than makes up for the 20hp difference, and as I said the DR won't matter as it is easily replaced or surpassed. Another alternative, if you pump CHA like someone else has suggested, is Paladin dilettante as that gives you most of the same wand access, and up to +5 to saves, depending on your CHA score. Never underestimate the importance of high saves!

I find my saves are a lot higher than people expect on my Ftr20.

Of non-epic raid bosses, only two of them (Elite Horoth and the VOD version of elite Suulomades) have DCs high enough that I fail them on a 2. (Except for Will saves but I'm blanket immune to everything there in fights that don't involve beholders).

Skills: Intimidate (23), UMD (11), Balance (23), Tumble (1), Concentration (left overs). Suggestions welcome on best skill allocations, concentration is there to be able to get off a raise dead scroll in the event of a near wipe.

This covers the basics. Lot's of room for ToD sets. A difficult choice has to be made about where to put Greensteel items. If you want to TR in the future into a build like Sirgog's AC build then it can go to the belt but otherwise the belt is a great place for the Ravager set (as you get the 2d6 bleed damage on all glancing blows).

To shore up shortfalls in hate or intimidate you could make additional sets of DT with 10% hate or +3 exceptional charisma skills on the first tiers at the cost of 10% healing amp.

Any feedback welcome all the ducks seem to be lined up. General DPS should be decent with any 2 handed weapon with THF'ing feats, PA, IC:S and a solid strength score. Missing WF:S/WS:S etc but they seem less valuable than other options. AB might be an issue (someone can call me out on it if they'd like to produce figures on it).

I was thinking I should play around with fighter for a main class and as a race maybe H-Elf with a barb dilly. For the HP and DR.

However you all are the experts and I've come to you for advice. Should I just scrap this dream and maybe roll with a pure barb instead because the lack of equipment because it's not possible to buy decent enough tanking gear off the AH?

Sticking with what little I know on the subject:

If the wiki is to be trusted, then you *can't* take both Fighter Toughness and Half Elf Barbarian Toughness. Even if you could, though, it would be 3AP plus your dilettante feat for 20 HP. Compare that to going human and just spending the bonus feat on another copy of toughness-- that would be 22 HP without spending any AP.

Again by the numbers, Barbarians inherently get 40 more hit points than fighters. Go fighter and spend two of your bonus feats on Toughness copies, and you've already caught up. Of course, hit point total isn't the only important ability, and I would recommend that you just play whichever class you prefer.

I cannot advise rolling a tank as a first life toon. It's very gear and stat intensive, and even second life toons often do not have enough. I would suggest looking at Shade's ultimate HP tank build if you are really determined. His build is more healing amp and hate speced than for armor class, making it a wee bit easier. Sirgog's Iron Defender, my preferred build, is more AC speced. Both end up with 850+ hp, which is plenty for any tank.

I cannot advise rolling a tank as a first life toon. It's very gear and stat intensive, and even second life toons often do not have enough. I would suggest looking at Shade's ultimate HP tank build if you are really determined. His build is more healing amp and hate speced than for armor class, making it a wee bit easier. Sirgog's Iron Defender, my preferred build, is more AC speced. Both end up with 850+ hp, which is plenty for any tank.

Looks like you missed my post above where I attempted to design a tank that could tank elob with 0 epic gear and only a single shard GS weapon in terms of raid gear. Looks to work from here.

smithj_2020, why do you have 1k+ hp with no shield mastery+imp sm, when it's necessary for the only raid(elob) that might need around that amount of hp? Wouldn't it be better to drop a couple toughness feats for those 2 feats(losing 50ish hp with sd, still above 1k from your 1080) and getting a shield and that epic dwarven axe from the new chain(which, I saw in a calc thread, is more dps than a crafted beater)?

wowo, why not make the +6 con belt a con/gfl belt from Shav and make the trinket a Blasting Chime(mlvl4+) or Bloodstone?

smithj_2020, why do you have 1k+ hp with no shield mastery+imp sm, when it's necessary for the only raid(elob) that might need around that amount of hp? Wouldn't it be better to drop a couple toughness feats for those 2 feats(losing 50ish hp with sd, still above 1k from your 1080) and getting a shield and that epic dwarven axe from the new chain(which, I saw in a calc thread, is more dps than a crafted beater)?

wowo, why not make the +6 con belt a con/gfl belt from Shav and make the trinket a Blasting Chime(mlvl4+) or Bloodstone?

The trinket is epic Brawns for certain intim cases, I swap out for bloodstone, and I actually didn't list but I do have shield mastery, But not imp shield mastery, I do have the dwarf enhance that allows me to take extra damage while blocking tho. I use Knosts for extra 2 damage, and I don't need GFL when Epic Denieth chain has SFL.

Also I'm currently working on my alchemical D. Axe for tanking.

Last edited by smithj_2020; 03-27-2012 at 06:36 PM.

I feel at home in the darkness, when its just me and my blades...when the hunter takes over!

The trinket is epic Brawns for certain intim cases, I swap out for bloodstone, and I actually didn't list but I do have shield mastery, But not imp shield mastery, I do have the dwarf enhance that allows me to take extra damage while blocking tho. I use Knosts for extra 2 damage, and I don't need GFL when Epic Denieth chain has SFL.

The second part wasn't in regards to your post, it was directed at Wax_on/off's build.

smithj_2020, why do you have 1k+ hp with no shield mastery+imp sm, when it's necessary for the only raid(elob) that might need around that amount of hp? Wouldn't it be better to drop a couple toughness feats for those 2 feats(losing 50ish hp with sd, still above 1k from your 1080) and getting a shield and that epic dwarven axe from the new chain(which, I saw in a calc thread, is more dps than a crafted beater)?

wowo, why not make the +6 con belt a con/gfl belt from Shav and make the trinket a Blasting Chime(mlvl4+) or Bloodstone?

eLoB can be tanked between 850-900. 1000+ HP is just a waste of toughness feats and build points. My SnB tank has 3 toughness I think, maybe 4. Elite Horoth, Elite Sulu, Epic LoB...not a problem. Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Bash are the awesome.

eLoB can be tanked between 850-900. 1000+ HP is just a waste of toughness feats and build points. My SnB tank has 3 toughness I think, maybe 4. Elite Horoth, Elite Sulu, Epic LoB...not a problem. Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Bash are the awesome.

Yeah, I've heard the same from posts/builds/friends/friends of friends that that amount is fine, but for people who go for 1k+ hp it seems to be a benchmark for their personal satisfaction. That's why I mentioned the minimum tweaks for his build, but he has the feat(s) so it's neither here nor there.

eLoB can be tanked between 850-900. 1000+ HP is just a waste of toughness feats and build points. My SnB tank has 3 toughness I think, maybe 4. Elite Horoth, Elite Sulu, Epic LoB...not a problem. Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Bash are the awesome.

Ouch man, no need for insults....it's not a waste of build points, I mean your going to use those points no matter what, if your a tank con is a smart pick

And why not take toughness again and again I didn't need any other feats, I had all those I wanted/needed. Plus I can tank everything easy and it's fun to see that many HPs, the build isn't lacking in anything an has a ton of hps it's fun

To answer Any questions- I think combo of fire/earth first 2 tiers will give me the most dps per swing with Flaming burst, flaming blast, acid blast and disenegration, also seeker +10 won't have to take off epic Brawns which gives me more incite and +20 intim.

Last edited by smithj_2020; 03-27-2012 at 09:45 PM.

I feel at home in the darkness, when its just me and my blades...when the hunter takes over!

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